


You Could Be Her Vivian Kensington

by Allaine



Category: Super Fun Night
Genre: F/F, Friendship, Gen, Humor, Pre-Slash, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-10-21
Updated: 2014-07-14
Packaged: 2017-12-30 00:38:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 16,448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1011957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Allaine/pseuds/Allaine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kendall really needs to stop crashing all these Friday night get-togethers Kimmie keeps having.  Otherwise people might start to think she wants to be there.  Like Kendall.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The majority of this was written after I saw episode 1x02, but before 1x03. Therefore, you should assume that the events of 1x03 did not happen.

Kendall Quinn could already feel a migraine coming on even before she heard the knock on her office door, looked up, and saw Kimmie Boubier standing at the threshold. Yeah, that was a migraine all right. “Yes, Kimmie?” she asked with exaggerated patience.

“Hey,” Kimmie said awkwardly, which was fitting, since everything had been awkward about her from the day Kendall had been introduced to her. “So, um, how’s it going?”

Kendall blinked at her. “I’m swamped under this caseload, Kimmie,” she said, which was close to the truth. “Is there something that you need?” _Lessons in how to stop fidgeting, perhaps?_

“Right! Yes, well, you see, today’s Thursday.”

Kimmie had never been the most articulate person, Kendall had found, and she had a tendency to become even less so the longer she talked. Still, this was a personal record for her. “And?”

“Aaand, that makes tomorrow Friday.”

_Did IQ’s drop sharply while I was away?_ She cursed inwardly for even thinking that. One of her ex-boyfriends had been such a closet geek, and he’d inflicted more than enough science fiction on her, even in the short two months they’d been together. If she ever quoted one of those movies out loud, Kendall would never forgive herself.

“So,” Kimmie continued, evidently taking Kendall’s silence as some sort of invitation to go on speaking, “that means tomorrow night is Friday night.”

Kendall was about to scream that she could have gotten all of this from the daycare facility downstairs and in much less time, when the light bulb suddenly went on. _Friday night. As in, the time of the week when Kimmie and her little friends went on their outings. The outings you’ve been crashing for the past month. A month wasted because it was all for the boss’ son, and you just heard from Richard himself that he’d met a nice British girl last week and they were equally infatuated with each other._

Why had Richard felt it necessary to tell her that anyway? She hadn’t been that obvious in her pursuit of him, unless you counted her climbing onto a piano during a performance by Kimmie Boubier, Pop Icon. Which okay, Richard probably had. At least she’d gotten a trophy out of it . . . which she’d tossed in a dumpster on her way home that night.

Kimmie had to know. She was still just as much Richard’s “chum” now as she’d been last month. That had to be why she was here. She probably wanted Kendall to stop showing her up every Friday night. It wasn’t Kendall’s fault that she was prettier, smarter, and more talented at everything. It was only Kendall’s fault that she’d obviously wasted four perfectly good Friday nights in the first place.

“Right, Friday night,” Kendall parroted. “I guess you’ve got big plans with Marika and Helen-Alice.”

Kimmie brightened, and Kendall sighed. _You’ve memorized her loser friends’ first names. Why did you even go to that damn piano bar in the first place?_

“Yes, we’re going to a Dave and Buster’s,” Kimmie told her. 

Swell. Kimmie had found a more appropriate level of competition for her, eleven-year-old boys.

“And I was wondering if you wanted to know what time we’ll be getting there?”

Kendall had been reaching into her desk drawer for her bottle of Motrin, but her hand froze in mid-air. Wait. “What?”

“Well, I don’t know if you’ve ever been there,” Kimmie said, ignorant of the way Kendall’s brain synapses had just overloaded. “But apparently it’s the size of a warehouse. I figured trying to find someone inside, even three someones, would be rather difficult compared to simply meeting them – “

This couldn’t possibly be happening. “You’re inviting me along?”

Kimmie tilted her head slightly and looked directly at her. Kendall was shocked by the sudden thought that her coworker’s eyes seemed awfully observant. “Well, you’ve been doing a good job of inviting yourself for the past few weeks. I figured, why not just make it official?”

Kendall flushed just a little bit. She’d been caught off-guard by her office rival, something that almost never happened. She did NOT like it. She also didn’t like Kimmie having this idea that Kendall would WANT to hang out with three social lepers like them. “Didn’t you ever ask yourself why I’ve been showing up each week?”

“Well, duh, yeah, I asked myself that at the piano bar, and then I was like, obviously she’s trying to get her hooks into Richard,” Kimmie said casually, and this time Kendall definitely felt the blood rushing to her cheeks. 

“It wasn’t like that,” Kendall said, on the defensive now. “Richard wasn’t even THERE two times.”

“Which you couldn’t have known beforehand,” Kimmie replied. 

“And then I stayed even after I found out he wasn’t there,” Kendall said triumphantly.

“Which is why you’re invited,” Kimmie said. “Because obviously you don’t mind spending time with just the three of us.”

Kendall opened her mouth, and then shut it again. Fuck, sometimes she could almost forget Kimmie was a lawyer too. She wanted to say that she did mind spending time with them, she minded it very much, but she couldn’t for two reasons. One, it would require speaking to a coworker so rudely that even Kendall would call it unprofessional. And two, what other explanation could Kendall _give_ for her behavior?

Kimmie then surprised her yet again by stepping inside, _closing the door_ , and sitting across from her. “Look, I know why you stuck around at the miniature golf course and the gallery opening. You couldn’t risk Richard showing up after you left, and even if he didn’t, you couldn’t risk me or my friends telling him what you did the next time he DID show up.”

Kendall rubbed the back of her neck. That had been . . . part of it.

“And,” Kimmie sighed, “you seem to be fixated on beating me. Which I wish you weren’t, because it’s really stressful. I don’t even know why, I’m probably the most harmless person in the building.”

And that had been the other part of it. “Are we speaking frankly here?” Kendall finally asked, fed up with the direction this conversation had taken.

Kimmie nodded.

“I don’t know if you realize this, Kimmie. Hell, you probably have no idea, because you ARE the most harmless person in the building.” Kendall was willing to bet Kimmie had been picked on as a child. The fat ones always were. At Kendall’s high school, if the fat girls had been strong-willed enough, they were just outcasts. If they hadn’t, then they were victims. She’d seen girls bully other girls twice their size and get away with it. Possibly . . . she’d been the bully a time or two. “But you’re also friends with the second-most POWERFUL person in the firm. And that puts you on the fast track to partner.”

“Who, me?” Kimmie asked disbelievingly. The almost freakish confidence with which she’d been speaking to Kendall vanished in a flood of low self-esteem. “That’s crazy, I’m not – and even if I was, why the hell would you try to _antagonize_ me?”

Kendall rolled her eyes. “I wasn’t trying to antagonize you, Kimmie, I was trying to take your place!”

Kimmie stared at her. Then she shook her head. “You were going about it a funny way then.”

And Kendall was just big enough to admit that yes, she HAD been going about it the wrong way. Every time the competitive drive that helped her be a great lawyer, had kicked in so fiercely that she’d lost sight of the true objective. The idea had been to win Richard over, not offend him by trying to humiliate a friend of his. All she said, though, was “I like to win”.

“Hm,” Kimmie said. “Well, in that case, I withdraw my invitation. If you like to win so much, you wouldn’t want to be there.”

Kendall stiffened in her chair. “Excuse me?”

“I’ll have you know, Kendall, that I am unbeatable when it comes to worthless trivia. Helen-Alice and Marika have been trying to beat me for years, and they’ve never done it,” Kimmie told her. “If you came, you’d have to learn how to enjoy _losing_.”

That night, Kendall would shake her head when she thought back to this moment. She had _just_ been thinking about how she’d let her ultra-competitive streak do all her thinking for her. And yet she let it happen all over again. “I bet your girlfriends would enjoy watching _you_ lose.”

Kimmie shrugged. “I suppose, but it’s never going to happen.”

“What time are you getting there?”

“Eight o’clock.”

“I’ll be there.”

“Didn’t I say your invitation had been withdrawn?”

“When have I ever been invited before?”

Kimmie scoffed and got up to leave. Or at least she tried to. “Um, I seem to be – why are your chairs so small?”

Kendall sighed. Right, Motrin.

To be continued . . .


	2. Chapter 2

                “Okay ladies, you know the rules,” Kimmie said.  “We all wrote down ideas for a super fun night, we folded them up, we put them in here, and now whatever I draw, that’s what we’re doing.  No exceptions.”

                 “Not even for singing,” Marika added.

                 Kimmie paused.  “Right, um, of course, not even for singing.  I mean, the last time was great!  I’m sure singing in public would be, uh, just as much fun the second time.  Especially if I was singing _by myself._ ”

                 All three of them looked at her.  Kendall supposed they had a right to.  “I don’t think I’ve got another duet in me, thanks for asking.”

                 Marika glowered at her.

                 Kendall wasn’t entirely sure how she’d ended up here.  From the looks of it, Marika wasn’t either.  She wouldn’t stop threatening Kendall with her muscles.

                 Okay, so maybe Kimmie had used a little reverse psychology on her, but Kendall had had plenty of time to back out, and she hadn’t.  The fact remained that she _was_ excited to take Kimmie on in a battle of computerized wits and come out on top.  And computerized driving.  And computerized zombie slaying.  And even non-computerized Skee-Ball.  It could be fair to say that Kendall had stayed past midnight that Friday, doing absolutely nothing but playing any games that let her go head-to-head with Kimmie Boubier.  (Seriously, why didn’t she have her name legally changed?  With her body type?  It sounded obvious to her.)

                 The only thing she hadn’t engaged in that night was competitive _eating_ , and that was because she was clearly out of her league next to the three of them.  Kendall couldn’t fathom how short little Helen-Alice stayed so tiny when she ate as much as Kimmie did.  Even a hummingbird would watch her eat and think, “Wow, she must have a high metabolism”.  Although Kendall _had_ stuffed herself that night.  She’d still felt bloated the next morning.  Kimmie just kept challenging her to try new things, and damn it, when Kimmie pushed, Kendall just _could not_ stop herself from pushing back.

                 Still, that _should_ have been the end of it.  Kendall wasn’t even sure that Marika and Helen-Alice wanted her around at D&B.  Yet the following week, somehow Kimmie had roped her into another seemingly random activity.  And then again the following week.  And then again.  Seriously, it was getting embarrassing.  If she kept this up, people might start thinking she was just as much a loser as the other three. 

                 And then this morning Kimmie had tossed a few scraps of paper onto her desk.

                 Kendall stared at them.  “What the hell is this?”

                 “Write down a couple things you’d like to do tomorrow night,” Kimmie had told her.

                 _Relax at home with a bath and a glass of wine_ sounded good.  “Why?”

                 “Because, tonight we put them all in a jar, and I pull one out, and that’s what we do Friday.  It didn’t seem fair to invite you along if you didn’t get a chance to pick where we went.”

                 Kendall had gaped at her.  They weren’t seemingly random activities.  They were _completely_ random activities. 

                 And then, despite her initial impulse, she’d reached out and snatched the pieces of paper.  She could be honest with herself.  For the past two months Kendall had been spending her Friday nights with these women, mostly doing things she’d never get caught doing in public.  But if SHE got to pick, then maybe they could actually do something sophisticated for a change.  Something classy.

                 Maybe they wouldn’t all be such total dorks if Kendall could get them to start appreciating the things smart and wealthy people did.

                 She hadn’t fully understood what she was getting herself into, though, until she’d received an email from Kimmie with directions to her apartment.  “And please try dressing down tonight,” Kimmie had added.  “We’re not going anywhere.  We’re just picking.  You don’t need to remind Marika and Helen-Alice just how expensive your wardrobe is.”

                 Crap.  Kendall hadn’t realized she actually needed to BE THERE for the draw.  If she’d known, she wouldn’t have – but she couldn’t back out now.  She _really_ wanted to watch Kimmie at a wine tasting.

                 So she’d shown up at Kimmie’s apartment in sweatpants and a T-shirt she hadn’t worn in a year.  She’d _still_ look better than the others.  (And she did, if she said so herself.)  She’d added her pieces of paper to the pot while Helen-Alice and Marika looked on in not quite veiled disbelief.  And then she’d sat at the table with them and waited.

                 Kimmie pulled a piece of paper out and unfolded it.  “Ride a mechanical bull.  Um, yay?” she said weakly.

                 “Yes!” Marika crowed, pumping a fist.

                 Kendall scowled.  Damn it.  Although judging by Kimmie’s expression, she was just as thrilled as Kendall was.  Next time they’d pick hers . . .

                 Had she just thought the words _next time_?

                 The doorbell rang.

                 “Oooh!” Kimmie said brightly, getting up.  “I hope you didn’t eat dinner yet, Kendall.  I got a fifth pizza since I knew you’d be coming.”

                 Kendall stared helplessly after her as she opened the door.  _Five pizzas?_

                 “And there’s ice cream!” Helen-Alice added.

                 Her next thought _should_ have been, _I am never coming here again._ For some reason, it was, _maybe I should buy an elliptical_.  

* * *

                She bought the elliptical.  She’d eaten four slices of pizza that night, a feat which she should NOT have been capable of, and those four slices would not be staying in her body for long.

                She could have just gone to a gym.  Buying the elliptical implied there would be more nights like that one.  That implication should have staggered her so violently that Kendall would spend the rest of her life running away if she saw Kimmie coming towards her.

                 Kendall had been staggered by something else entirely.

                 She’d _liked_ it.  In fact, every night she’d spent with Kimmie and her friends had been more fun than almost anything else in the past few months.  Maybe the past year.  Years?

                 And it wasn’t because Kimmie, Marika and Helen-Alice were the most fun people on the planet.  Not a Friday night went by without one of them arriving at their destination and saying, “Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea”.  Or one of them suffering some form of embarrassment or social awkwardness.  Like when that “bull” tossed Kimmie last night and she nearly did a crowd dive.  That would’ve cracked a few skulls.  Kimmie had been beet red in the face for half an hour afterwards.

                 They were stepping out of their comfort zone, but by definition, that meant doing things you _weren’t_ comfortable doing.  There had been a few times where Kendall could see by the look on their faces that they would rather have been anywhere else.

                  A couple months ago, Kendall would have pounced on that emotion.  She would have found ways to heighten those moments of mortification, of feeling out of their league, of wanting to turn around and run back home.  She probably would have caused a few herself.  By the end of the first month Kendall would have had them locking their doors every Friday night and not emerging until Monday morning.

                  It wouldn’t have even been about Helen-Alice and Marika.  They would have been innocent bystanders, collateral damage as far as Kendall was concerned.  It would have been about reducing Kimmie to a pitiable shell of a person, never drawing attention to herself at the firm, permanently humbled by the knowledge that Kendall really was superior to her in all the ways that mattered.

                  Instead, she felt sympathy for them.  Their discomfort became her discomfort.  She wouldn’t say anything, she’d just wait for them to do what they always seemed able to do.  They bucked up, plowed through it, and saw the night to the end.  It was almost . . . admirable.

                  Sympathy and admiration were NOT feelings she should have for a few social misfits who were compensating for years of staying at home by, apparently, acting out every fancy they’d ever had.  It was completely divorced from considerations of what was trendy or cool.  She hadn’t even known there were still piano bars out there, it sounded like something that should have died with disco.  At this rate, it was only a matter of time before Kimmie pulled “bowling” out of the jar.  Her teenage self would have thought Kendall had gone insane in her twenties.  She was supposed to be spending Friday nights with hot, available men or her equally sophisticated, urban professional girlfriends.

                  And THAT was why she’d enjoyed herself that night.  Because present-day Kendall didn’t HAVE friends like that.  She put in a lot of hours at the firm, it made meeting new people difficult.  And the teenage version of herself hadn’t had them either.  Oh sure, she’d had “best friends”.  As one of the most popular girls in high school, it only made sense to secure her status by befriending the other popular girls.  But high school was just one big rat race, and you never stopped clawing your way up the ladder.  They hadn’t been her friends, they’d been her competition.  Maybe she’d liked it then, since CLEARLY she had a competitive streak that pushed the boundaries of rationality.  But it wasn’t so much fun now.  She’d never had a friend who didn’t take pleasure in her occasional misfortunes.  She’d never had someone who . . . felt sympathy for her.

                  Kimmie, Marika and Helen-Alice obviously had that, and witnessing it in action, she’d never seen it look so appealing.

                  So she’d stayed and watched as they illustrated WHY normally they ordered four pizzas at a time.  She’d been carried along, splurging on pizza and ice cream.  Kendall had sat on a couch next to Kimmie Boubier, of all people, and watched a romantic comedy on DVD.  She’d let Kimmie show her the video blog she did, and refrained from making a snide remark.  (All bets would have been off, though, if Kimmie had brought up the Pretty Little Liars fan fiction.)  Most of all, she’d never manufactured an excuse to leave.  It got late, they all had to work the next day, and so Kendall left then.

                  The following night had been fun, but if Kendall was going to be brutally honest with herself, Thursday night was the “super fun night”.  It was like a sleepover, minus actual sleeping.  She’d had them when she was younger, but enjoyed them about as much as a sleepover with wolverines.  Perhaps that was a telling statement about the others’ maturity level, but all Kendall knew was that she got to let her guard down, knowing that she didn’t need to watch every word she said for fear of humiliation. 

                  She would never say any of this out loud, of course.  Appearances had to be maintained.   She was still the cool kid slumming with the outcasts.  She was going to make partner by the time she was thirty.  She couldn’t be seen at the office being pals with the fat, clumsy Kimmie.

                  But no one had to know if she went back next Thursday.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Since this story was conceived before I saw episode 3, Richard and Kendall haven't become romantically involved. Also, I haven't seen episode 5 yet, the one where Kimmie and Kendall have to spend time together. But if their interactions are any good, I may try to work it into the story. This chapter will be shorter than the last one. The next one will probably be longer.

     Kendall felt like she was suffering from emotional whiplash.  She’d left for work that Monday morning determined to find a new activity for herself on Thursday and Friday nights, and within a few hours, she was almost pathetically grateful when Kimmie stopped by her office, took one look at her, and asked her what was wrong.

     What was wrong?  What was wrong was that she’d gotten dressed for work and found that she couldn’t fit into the skirt she’d picked.  Or the second one.  Kendall had looked in the mirror and admitted to herself that the button-down blouse was fitting a little snugly too.

     It was Kimmie’s fault, her and her friends.  It was because of them and their bad habits that for almost two months, she’d been eating way too much junk food every Friday night.  It was because of them that for the six weeks after _that_ , she’d been eating too much on Thursday _and_ Friday nights, not to mention being a couch potato every Thursday.  The elliptical machine just gathered dust.  All three of them basically turned into slobs when they came home, and for the past six Thursdays she’d been transforming into a slob right along with them.  Going home, pulling on some sweats or yoga pants, tying her hair with a scrunchie, actively looking forward to seeing HER suggestion for Friday being selected, not eating anything because she knew she’d eat plenty that night, not caring about her appearance because they wouldn’t judge her . . . 

     Kendall was turning into one of them.  There was no other way to describe it.  Soon she’d be the one getting into embarrassing situations like mistaking wasabi for guacamole (Marika) or getting her fingers stuck in a bowling ball (Kimmie).  Maybe even not renewing her lease so she could move in with them.  Then they could wallow in their loserdom.

     She’d learned things about herself.  She’d learned that she’d been lonely, that real friends were a good thing to have.  She just needed to find _new_ real friends before she had to buy a completely new wardrobe.

     That had been the plan, and then Richard dropped by.  They’d been completely professional with each other, especially since he was apparently still seeing that English hussy.  She’d watched him banter with Kimmie and not minded because really, what did it matter as long as Kendall was making clients happy and putting in more billable hours than anyone?  And really, what had she been thinking?  She’d pursued him without even knowing if she would like dating him.  What if it hadn’t worked?  How was she supposed to get ahead if the boss’ son was her EX-boyfriend?  So they limited their discussions to work.

     Until today.

     “Could you please close the door?” Kendall said softly.

     Kimmie actually looked alarmed as she entered and did as she was asked.

     In the back of her mind, Kendall had occasionally wondered if Kimmie and her friends actually wanted her around.  Maybe they felt stuck with her because she’d invited herself the first few times.  Maybe Kimmie was just trying to worm her way into Kendall’s confidence, then blindside her when she’d least expect it.  But the look on her face was enough to tell her that Kimmie . . . cared about her.

     The jury was still out on Marika.

     “What happened?” Kimmie asked.

     “Don’t sit down,” Kendall said hurriedly as Kimmie was about to.  “You’ll get stuck again.”

     “Oh,” Kimmie said sheepishly.  “Yeah, duh.  You gonna buy bigger chairs or what?”

     Kendall smiled just a little bit.

     “No, really, what’s wrong?”

     “Did, um, did you tell Richard we’ve been hanging out?”

     Kimmie looked confused.  “Uh, yeah, a few times.  Why?”

     “Well,” Kendall replied, “you’ll be glad to know that apparently he’s very protective of you.”

     There was a pause as Kimmie evidently tried to figure out how to respond to that.  “Well, he’s a sweet guy,” she finally said.

     “Sweet to you, anyway,” Kendall muttered.

     “What?”

    “To ME, on the other hand, he comes in here and he says _Whatever it is you’re trying to pull with Kimmie Boubier, stop it.  She seems to think you’re friends now, which we both know couldn’t possibly be true, after the things I saw you do to her_ ,” Kendall repeated with an exaggerated British accent.

     Kimmie’s eyes turned round.

     “Y _ou’re just trying to make her think you like her, so you can stab her in the back later and humiliate her.  But I promise you, Kendall – if you do that, you will never rise higher in this firm.  Do you understand me?_ ”

     “He, he – he wouldn’t have said that,” Kimmie said disbelievingly.

     “Ask him yourself,” Kendall said.  “He’ll probably be proud of himself.  I’m only seen him twice outside of the office, and I made a strong enough impression to convince him that I’m a heartless monster.”

     She wasn’t sure what had been worse – the way he’d flat out accused her of being a ruthless sociopath, or the fact that afterwards, she’d admitted to herself that three months ago, she would have been capable of doing something _exactly_ like that.  Regardless, she’d spent the whole morning asking herself if she was a bad person and not liking the answer.

     “Well, that’s – that’s just completely unacceptable!” Kimmie burst out, putting her hands on her hips.  “You can’t just go around talking to people like that!”

     “I have.”

     “There’s a difference between an insult here and there, and telling someone they’re _evil!_ Besides, you haven’t said anything like that about me in weeks.”

     Kendall blinked.  “I haven’t?”

     Kimmie rolled her eyes.  “Uh, yeah, I think I’d remember it if someone made fun of me on Wednesday and then came over to my apartment on Thursday.  Because that would just be weird.”

     She had a point.  Kendall imagined making a rude comment about Kimmie’s outfit and almost immediately felt – guilty?  Yes, guilty.

     “I’ll straighten Richard out,” Kimmie went on.  “He can’t talk to my friends that way.  Unless, like, they screwed up a contract or something, because he’s the boss and then he’s supposed to get mad, but only then!”

     “Kimmie, wait,” Kendall said as she put one hand on the doorknob.  “He can’t talk to your friends that way?  So I’m your - friend now?”

     Kimmie smiled.  “You know, for someone who thinks they’re pretty hot shit at being a lawyer, you’re a little slow on the uptake.”

     “But how do you know Richard isn’t . . . you know, right?” Kendall asked, finding herself floored by Kimmie’s casual admission.

     “Because if you were a heartless monster, then you wouldn’t be so upset by what Richard said, would you?” Kimmie pointed out.  “Besides, Marika would have seen through it eventually, and then she’d beat the piss out of you.”

     Yeah, that was probably true. 

* * *

 

     That Thursday, one of Kendall’s suggestions was pulled out for the first time.

     Kimmie crinkled her brow as she read the slip.  “Have a sleepover at Kendall’s apartment?  Um, well, I guess that could be considered going out, although that might violate the spirit of this.”

     “Whose idea was THAT?” Marika asked.

     “Mine,” Kendall said.

     “Wait, so your idea of a super fun night,” Marika replied incredulously, “is for the four of us to spend the night at YOUR place?”

     Kendall nodded.

     “Why?” Helen-Alice asked.

     “Well, for one thing, we always meet here,” Kendall said, “and I don’t think it’s fair that I haven’t invited you to MY home yet.  And two,  I realize that’s basically what the three of you have been doing every Friday night for years, but I haven’t.  I’ve never had a girlfriend over at my place.  All I know is, I’ve been spending a few hours here every Thursday, and I watch the three of you, and I really wish I had something like what you have.  Plus we always have to end early on Thursday because we have work the next day, but on a Friday we could stay up as long as we wanted.”  She looked at each of them.  “Does that sound all right?”

     Kimmie smiled gently at her.  “Okay, I think I know what this is about.  Guys, Kendall had a rough Monday morning, and we need to get something out in the open.  Do either of you not think that Kendall has been coming over here every week because she sincerely wants to?”

     Marika and Helen-Alice looked at each other, and then Marika took a drink from her beer bottle.  “Nah,” she said.  “I would’ve beaten the piss out of her by now if I thought that.”

     Kendall caught the wink Kimmie sent her and smiled.

     “No,” Helen-Alice said.  “Honestly, sometimes I forget how mean she was that first time.  Sorry, Kendall,” she added, evidently seeing the way her face fell, “but you have to admit you were a real bitch that night.”

     Marika snorted.

     “Yes,” Kendall admitted.  “Have I apologized for that yet?”

     “I think you just did,” Kimmie said.  “And Kendall, ARE you here because you want to be?”

     Kendall paused for a moment.  “Actually, I can’t keep myself away now.”

     "Then I think we're gonna need directions to your building."

     To be continued . . .


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was conceived before Episode 1x05. Any similarities are coincidental. That being said, I thought the Kimmie/Kendall scenes in "Go With Glorg" came very close to what I would have written if I'd been in charge of the script.

 

“Your apartment is very nice, Kendall.” 

Kendall almost jumped out of her socks.  To say that Helen-Alice had crept up on her would have been uncharitable.  She was just really small, and really, _really_ quiet.  “Oh, right, thanks,” she said, hoping the other woman didn’t notice the way her hand slid up to press against her pounding heart. 

She’d come home from work that day and found herself confronted with a dilemma.  Her apartment was undeniably nicer than theirs.  It was larger, it was more expensive, it was better furnished, and it was in a newer building.  She’d even hired a moderately-priced interior decorator one day after signing the lease.  It was possible that when the girls arrived, they’d think she invited them over for another round of “Why Kendall is Smarter, Prettier, and All-Around Better Than Kimmie”.  On the other hand, she could intentionally mess the place up a little, try to make it look like she hadn’t cleaned in a while, but _that_ might just create the impression that they weren’t guests who deserved a little straightening up. 

Kendall eventually chose to clean.  After their little “sharing session” the night before, she had to trust that they knew she wasn’t trying to rub her superiority in their faces any more.   

And they hadn’t seemed bothered in the least when they arrived.  In fact, once they’d gotten the “official tour”, Marika had said, “Swanky.  You ever want some roommates, you give us a call.” 

It had only been a few days ago that Kendall, in a bout of self-pity, had imagined rooming with them in _their_ apartment with horror.  Now, though, she pictured the four of them living together in her place and realized that it wasn’t something she’d mind at all.  “You’d be my first choice,” she’d said truthfully, “but there’s only two bedrooms.  Speaking of which, one of you will have to sleep on the floor with me.” 

“Oh, don’t worry about it,” Kimmie had replied.  “Our old apartment had two bedrooms too.  We used to take turns sharing a bed.” 

“Used to take turns,” Helen-Alice had added.  “After the second time Kimmie rolled over in her sleep and accidentally shoved me onto the floor, we decided it would just be easier if Marika and I slept together.” 

“In a completely platonic and non-erotic way,” Marika had supplied, while Kimmie had looked suitably embarrassed by Helen-Alice’s recollection.  “So we’ll just bunk up like we did in the old days, and you and Kimmie, well, share a bed at your own peril, Kendall.” 

“Marika!” Kimmie had hissed, mortified. 

“We’ll figure something out,” Kendall had said vaguely.  What she had thought was, _I’ll take the couch._

“It’s funny,” Helen-Alice now said to Kendall as the two stood in her kitchen.  She gestured at the imposing spread of Chinese food Kendall had ordered.  “But we hardly ever get Chinese.  Considering I’m of Chinese descent myself.” 

“We don’t believe in stereotypes!” Kimmie called out from the living room. 

Kendall chuckled.  “I wasn’t in the mood for pizza, if that’s okay with you guys.  I think I’ve reached my consolation quota for the fall.” 

Helen-Alice smiled.  “No, that’s fine,” she said quietly.  “You certainly got a lot.” 

“I didn’t know what you each liked.  Since, you know, you hardly ever get it.” 

“Right, of course.”  Helen-Alice glanced out of the kitchen.  “Did you see what DVD Kimmie brought?” 

“No, what?” 

“Legally Blonde.  It’s her favorite movie.  She’s probably watched it twenty times.”  She hesitated.  “That’s actually why I wanted to talk to you.” 

“Why?”  

Helen-Alice moved a little closer.  “Kimmie has wanted to be Elle Woods for as long as I’ve known her.  She’ll tell you it’s because she wanted to be the successful lawyer, she wanted to fall in love with the handsome man.  And that’s true.  But there’s also Vivian Kensington.” 

Kendall hadn’t seen the movie in years.  “Um, I don’t remember – “ 

“The Selma Blair character.” 

“Oh.  Uh, not really seeing the connection here.” 

Helen-Alice sighed.  “At the start of the movie Vivian is dating Elle’s ex, and she doesn’t like or respect Elle.  By the end of the movie, they’re best friends.  Kendall, I’ve seen the look on Kimmie’s face when she watches this movie.  This may not surprise you, but she wasn’t very popular growing up.” 

She’d deduced that the very day she met Kimmie.  A girl her size with the last name Boubier?  She must have been torn apart on a daily basis. 

“I believe that for Kimmie, Vivian represents her fantasy that after all the popular girls who she desperately wanted to like her, she finally found one who learned to.” 

“Wasn’t Elle, like, the most popular girl in college?” 

“Look, it’s just a theory, not a fan manifesto, work with me here.”

_A fan what?_

“I’m just saying, she got the job, she’s still working on the man, and you could be her Vivian.  I want you to be aware of that, in case you decide down the line that, I don’t know, getting ahead at the office means not being friends after all.  You will break her heart.” 

Whether or not Helen-Alice was right about Vivian and Elle, it didn’t change the fact that Kendall was probably the first in a long line of “popular” girls who had learned to like Kimmie Boubier.  And she was right to point it out.  While her personal relationship with Kimmie had become much more relaxed, at work they were still two people vying with their colleagues and each other for a limited number of partnership slots.  If Kendall thought Kimmie was standing between her and a promotion, she couldn’t say she wouldn’t try to steamroll Kimmie. 

She couldn’t say she _would_ either, and coming from Kendall, that was saying a lot. 

“I understand,” Kendall said quietly. 

“Good,” Helen-Alice replied.  She smiled gently.  “Because you wouldn’t just be losing one friend.  You’d be losing three.”  

* * *

Midway through the movie, Helen-Alice had declared an intermission for a bathroom break, and Kimmie had followed after.  That had left Kendall alone with Marika, who got up as soon as the others left, and sat next to Kendall. 

_She’d better not say ‘Vivian’._

“Hey, so, I probably should have said something sooner,” Marika began, “but let’s face it.  You were this huge, stuck-up bitch when this whole thing started, we could all see what you were trying to do, and frankly I thought maybe you deserved it.” 

Kendall tensed.  This didn’t sound good. 

“When you’re with us . . . you really need to watch what you eat.” 

That – had not been expected.  

“What?” 

“Look, Kimmie has a huge appetite.  She’s been eating her feelings for years, and we’ve kind of been letting her do it,” Marika said.  “We didn’t want to eat normal portions in front of her because we thought we’d make her feel worse.  I work out all the time, so I burn a lot of calories.  And Helen-Alice, well, in case you didn’t notice, she could eat a _moose_ and she wouldn’t gain an ounce.”  She glanced up and down at Kendall.  “Not trying to sound rude here, but you look like you’ve put on a few pounds.” 

Kendall turned red.  “Well, you did it without trying then.” 

“Sorry, I’m kinda that way with everyone.  But I’m not wrong.” 

“Maybe a few pounds,” she admitted, mortified. 

Marika shrugged.  “What you eat and how much of it, that’s totally up to you.  Obviously none of us would judge you if you weren’t a stick any more.  But you always seemed a little image-obsessed to me, and if you’re not careful, a few pounds is gonna turn into twenty real fast.  You’re either going to have to eat less or start using that nice elliptical machine I see gathering dust over there.  Otherwise, I do NOT want you blaming Kimmie if someone makes a joke about your weight in the office break room.  I’ll hear about it, and then I’ll break you into three pieces.” 

Kendall hadn’t realized until now just how protective of Kimmie they were.  She really wished she had someone like that. 

“You could stand to gain a few more, honestly,” Marika added.  “All you size zero types look like you’d get blown away by a stiff wind.”

* * *

“Are you sure you’re okay with this?” Kimmie asked.  “I thought Helen-Alice might have scared you off.” 

“It’s fine,” Kendall said.  “That couch was uncomfortable as hell to lie down on, and hardwood floors, well . . . “ 

If you’d asked Kendall three months ago which coworker she expected to share her bed with, she would have instantly said Richard.  Kimmie Boubier would have been dead last on the list. Guess who she was sharing a bed with. 

“Helen-Alice should be here, not me.  She’s tiny.” 

“Which is why she’s in the guest bedroom.  We can’t fit you and someone else onto a twin mattress.” 

“Then you should share the guest bed with Helen-Alice.  Marika’s used to sharing with me, she’ll punch me until I move.” 

“Hell no, it’s _my_ bed.” 

Kimmie snorted.  “There’s the Kendall I know from the office.” 

“What’s that supposed to mean?” 

“Nothing.  Just that you’re more relaxed when you’re not at work.  At work you’re all like, take no prisoners, never surrender, there’s no crying in baseball.” 

“Huh.  You’re exactly the same at the office.” 

There was a rustling sound that Kendall interpreted as Kimmie turning her head to look at her in the darkness.  They were both laying on their backs, looking up at the ceiling.  “Is that a good thing?” 

“If you were more like me at the office, we probably would have torn each other’s eyes out by now.  So yeah, that’s a good thing.” 

Kimmie didn’t answer at first.  “I tried talking to Richard about what he said to you, but he’s being . . . resistant.” 

Kendall wasn’t surprised.  She’d seen him giving her the evil eye that day.  

“He’s your friend.  None of your friends want to see you get hurt, I’ve found.” 

“Yeah, but, doesn’t that mean YOU don’t want to see me get hurt either?” 

“I suppose that depends on whether Richard thinks I’m your friend or not.” 

“It doesn’t matter what he thinks, it matters what I think.  Seriously,” Kimmie said darkly, “if he keeps it up, I might have to re-evaluate my friendship with HIM.” 

_That_ startled Kendall.  “Wait, really?  But he’s been friends with you longer than I have.” 

“At work, maybe.  But ever since he started seeing Bethany . . . and okay, I get it, who wants their boyfriend hanging out with a bunch of sexy, single ladies on a Friday night?  Still, how many times have I seen him out of the office?  It’s a lot less than the number of times I’ve seen you, Kendall.” 

Neither spoke for a minute.  Kendall was still processing the thought that she had leapfrogged Richard on Kimmie’s friend list when Kimmie spoke again.  “Actually, um, don’t be weirded out by this but, like, it’s just been the three of us for years.  And I love Marika and Helen-Alice to death, they’re like family.  But you’re the first new girlfriend I’ve made in a long time.  And I wanted you to know how . . . glad I am that we learned to like each other.  I’m even glad you came to that piano bar, if it got us to here.  I don’t know how you feel about it - ” 

“Last night I was lying here, all by myself in this big apartment,” Kendall confessed in a rush, “and I found myself wishing I lived with you guys too.” 

Kimmie gasped softly. 

She should have been embarrassed.  A few months ago she would have seen that as a shameful secret to take to the grave.  Now she was just glad she had someone to share it with. 

It was a laugh, really.  Helen-Alice told her that Kimmie had been watching the “cool kids” from the outside for years now, desperately wanting one of them to invite her into their circle.  And Kendall had been in denial as to how desperately _she_ wanted someone, _anyone_ , to be a real friend to her.  She’d been in denial when she told herself her parents were right, that she only needed the right body, the right job, and the right man to have the perfect life.  She’d been in denial until the moment she realized these three hopelessly uncool women wanted to be friends with her.  _Of course they did_ , she should have said to herself.  _She was the amazing Kendall Quinn, who didn’t want to be her friend?_

The real question was, _Who did?_

They did, and that was all that mattered.

A few hours later Kendall woke up and discovered that Kimmie had rolled over halfway.  One large arm was draped over her and held her loosely. 

She considered trying to free herself, but then decided she liked it that way. 

Besides, she wasn’t even sure if she could.

* * *

Kendall took Marika’s suggestion seriously.  True, she was long past the days where she made negative assumptions about Kimmie’s personality and lifestyle based on her weight.  When Kendall looked in the mirror, the reflection now told a story of a woman who had been skinny enough all her life that she could afford to put on a few pounds.  And she’d become more comfortable wearing looser, more casual clothes out of the office that didn’t show off every single curve.  That didn’t mean she was willing to let herself _go_ , though.  Not to mention the fact that maintaining her wardrobe at this firm was expensive, and she couldn’t afford to buy a whole new set of clothes every three months. 

But it was hard cutting back on a Thursday or Friday night, watching the others indulge.  And it would have been noticeable if she suddenly scaled back her eating.  It was easier to do what she’d planned all along, and actually use the exercise machine she’d purchased.  It gave her something to focus on those nights when being at home by herself now felt lonely. 

As for Helen-Alice’s tenuous link drawn between Kendall and a Reese Witherspoon comedy, she began making a conscious effort to open up around Kimmie at the office.  For fuck’s sake, a law firm wasn’t high school, and the water cooler wasn’t the cafeteria where the slightest friendly gesture to a social outcast was an invitation to finding yourself at the losers’ table.  Being “not rude” to Kimmie wasn’t quite equivalent to being “friendly”. 

Plus she might have ordered wider chairs for her office. 

It wasn’t to say that Kendall was turning into a marshmallow.  She’d been accustomed to working long hours all her life, and she expected the same from her coworkers.  And since she was in that vaguely-defined area between “partner” and “associate”, Kendall had the authority to make sure of it.  Kimmie busted her ass, same as everyone else.  But keeping the other associates at the firm for twelve hours or more on Mondays through Wednesdays also meant keeping Thursdays and Fridays relatively open. 

Being the “new” Kendall, however, had unintended consequences a few weeks later when Richard dropped by her office on a Thursday morning.  “Kendall,” he said with a degree of warmth that had been lacking previously.  “I have some good news for you.  More than some, actually.” 

“Okay,” she said warily.  “Good news” often meant “we have a new client, and you’re now responsible for their caseload”.  “More than some” sounded like “we have a BIG new client”. 

“First of all,” he told her, “I’ve come to admit that I may have been mistaken about you and Kimmie.  She’s been rather persistent about it, really.  She says you’ve even taken to those friends of hers.  Er, Erica and – Helen?” 

_Jesus, shouldn’t you know the names of her best friends by now, Richard?  I certainly made sure to remember you’re boffing some English girl named Bethany._

“So I want to apologize for that,” he added. 

“Apology accepted,” she said.  It WAS good news.  Having her supervisor mistrustful of her had been an ongoing black mark on her career ambitions, especially when said supervisor was the son of a name partner. 

“Actually,” Richard went on to say, “people have been picking up on the degree of, er, warmth you’ve been exhibiting towards Kimmie, and they like what they see.” 

Kendall wasn’t sure how to respond to that.  She wasn’t even sure how to _take_ that.  Did Kimmie just unintentionally instill protectiveness in everyone she met?  Had people really paid THAT much attention to how Kendall treated her? 

“There’s been a perception among the partners, Kendall, that you’re – how to put this delicately.” 

_A monster?  A frigid ice queen?  A raging bitch?_

“Let’s just say that some people were calling you the Terminator.” 

_A heartless killing machine, that was even better._

“Which is the perfect thing for an attorney to be, of course!  But you’ve been letting your heart peek out around Kimmie, which was a surprise to some, since they didn’t think you had one.  My father said that perhaps ‘firm loyalty’ wouldn’t be a foreign concept to you, and that they could trust you wouldn’t dump us the instant a better offer came along.” 

Were these intended to be backhanded compliments from Richard?  Kendall had to believe he wasn’t doing this on purpose, since he’d led off this conversation by taking back the things he’d said earlier.  But hearing that the rest of the firm thought of her as some kind of deadly, remorseless _viper_ made her want to cringe. 

“Of – of course I wouldn’t do that,” Kendall finally said once she realized he was waiting for a response. 

“Yes, I rather thought so.  Although you might want to dial it down a bit, Kendall.  Father says he hopes you’re not ‘turning soft’.  So perhaps in the future, less heart and more killer instinct?” 

Kendall nodded mutely.  It sounded like the partners expected her to walk a frigging tightrope.  She had to be soulless, but not _too_ soulless. 

“So,” Richard said, “on that note, my father is entrusting you with a big new client.  They could mean a LOT of billable hours for the firm in the future.  I’ll have the files sent down here shortly.  You’ll need to meet with the client’s general counsel on Monday, so put your other cases on the back burner for now and focus on this.  Give it the personal touch, right?” 

A big new client.  On very rare occasions, Kendall hated it when she was right.

* * *

“I won’t be able to come over tonight,” Kendall told Kimmie regretfully when the two found themselves riding an elevator together later that day.  “Or Friday.  Richard just dumped a big new client on my desk and I have to prepare for a Monday morning meeting.  I’m going to be elbow-deep in papers for the next few days.” 

“Oh,” Kimmie said.  “No problem, you’re busy, I’m busy, it happens.  See you next week then?” 

“God and the partners willing,” Kendall replied. 

She ignored the way that Kimmie looked as disappointed as she felt.

To be continued . . .


	5. Chapter 5

     It was just past 8 PM when Kendall’s phone blew up.  Well, okay, she got two personal texts, one after the other.  For her phone, that was a lot.

     She welcomed the break.  She’d probably be there past ten.  Still, as much work as this client was going to involve, Kendall could see this WOULD be a big client for the firm, and being entrusted with the responsibility meant great things for her career.

     Glancing at her phone display, she saw that one text was from Marika and the other from Helen-Alice.  They probably just selected their activity for the next night.  She opened Marika’s first.

     WTF?  UR BLOWING US OFF???  I TOLD YOU NOT TO GET K UPSET!

     Kendall stared at her phone.  Kimmie had been disappointed in the elevator, sure, but not “upset”.  She opened Helen-Alice’s text.

     I’M VERY DISAPPOINTED, KENDALL.  IF YOU DIDN’T WANT TO COME TONIGHT, YOU SHOULD HAVE MADE A BETTER EXCUSE.

     An “excuse”?  WTF, that was for sure!

     Annoyed, she stood up and used her phone to take a picture of her desk, which looked like a copy of the White Pages had vomited all over it.  Then she texted the photo to both of them, with the caption, THIS LOOK LIKE AN EXCUSE TO YOU??

     Either Kimmie had seriously misinterpreted what Kendall thought had been a pretty straightforward and truthful explanation of why she couldn’t make it, or – or well, that was the only answer she could come up with.

     Marika was the first to respond.

     DAMN! WHO WANTS TO BECOME A LAWYER AND DEAL WITH THAT SHIT ALL THE TIME?

     _Ambitious, driven workaholics who grow up fighting for every shred of parental attention by showing they’re more worthy than their equally driven brother and sister._

     When she thought it like that, Kendall could admit that maybe her childhood had been kind of dysfunctional.

     Helen-Alice’s reply was slightly more useful.

     KIMMIE SAID THAT RICHARD WASN’T AWARE OF ANY NEW CLIENTS, AND THAT YOU PROBABLY JUST WEREN’T INTERESTED IN COMING.  WHICH, ADMITTEDLY, DOESN’T REALLY SOUND LIKE YOU.

     Kendall re-read that message four times.  Wasn’t aware of any new clients?  What the hell was he saying that for?  Why would he tell –

     That was the moment where she almost lost it.  For a brief moment, she literally saw red.  Her brain flashed back to those History Channel documentaries on WWII that her father always used to watch, and the occasional Anglophobic things people would say.

     _Richard, you backstabbing, lying, LIMEY GIT!_

     She tried taking a few deep breaths. She needed to calm down. She needed to think rationally. She did not need to _cook some bangers and mash with Richard’s dick as a main ingredient_!

     Yes, exactly, not that.

     First she responded to Helen-Alice’s text and copied Marika. I WOULD HAVE COME, BUT I DIDN’T THINK I COULD FIT MY DESK THROUGH THE DOOR. RICHARD MENTION ANYTHING ELSE?

     Richard was her boss. His father was a name partner. She shouldn’t find a way to gradually but systematically destroy his life and leave him with nothing but his ruined psyche. She could find a way. Kendall already had an idea or two. She’d kept that particularly vicious killer instinct of hers caged ever since turning Kimmie into a pitiable shell of a human being had stopped being a life goal of hers. She had weeks of pent-up blood lust, and if Kendall were to turn it loose on Richard, it would be like turning a great white shark loose on a guppy.

     Because seriously? Spreading a false rumor about her? One that could be disproved pretty easily? What a piker. Like asking a blind man to chop down a tree. With a golf club.

     Her phone pinged again. It was Marika. HE SAID HE SUDDENLY HAD A LOT MORE FREE TIME NOW. MIGHT HAVE BROKEN UP WITH BETHANY. OR MAYBE SHE WAS DEPORTED. SAME DIFF, RIGHT?

     Even _Marika_ could remember his ex-girlfriend’s name.

     That had to be it. Richard was lonely, single, and probably looking to pick up where he left off on karaoke night. Maybe he thought he should be the one with Kimmie on Friday nights, not Kendall.

     An ugly feeling welled up inside of her. _How dare he? HOW DARE HE?_

     She’d put on ten pounds and decided she was okay with that. She’d left her apartment one night in yoga pants, a sweatshirt from college, and her hair in a scrunchy, and she’d been sober. She’d realized that stuffing her face with junk food and going on wacky adventures with a trio of total dorks two nights a week was something she looked forward to, even if it meant putting her dating life on indefinite hold.

     Kendall had practically become a different person, and now Richard thought he could swoop in and take her place, take Kimmie, take her friends? _Fuck_ that.

     She finally put a name to that ugly feeling. It felt like fear, maybe mixed with a little jealousy.

     She looked again at the files on her desk. They could wait until tomorrow.

     Wait . . . on second thought, they were coming with her.

* * *

      Kendall wasn’t even finished knocking on their door before it was ripped open from within.  “Hey,” Marika said in a manner that only an incredibly more naïve person, which Kendall was most certainly not, would perceive as “casual”.  “Wasn’t sure if you’d be dropping by.”

     “How did you answer the door so quickly?” Kendall asked.  “Did you just dive off the couch or something?”

     “No, are you kidding?  I just, um, happened to be walking past it when I heard you knocking.”

     “Didn’t you even look through the peephole first?”

     “I have reflexes and hand-eye coordination that are vastly superior to any intruder,” Marika said loftily.  “He’d still be taking his first step toward the door by the time I – “

     “She’s been standing by the door for the last thirty minutes,” Helen-Alice interrupted as she appeared next to Marika.

     “I have NOT,” Marika retorted.

     Helen-Alice just looked at her over her eyeglasses.

     “Maybe twenty,” Marika muttered.

     “Didn’t Kimmie ever ask WHY you’ve been lurking by the door all this time?” Kendall asked as they stepped back to allow her space to enter.

     Marika shrugged.  “Doubt she knows.  Tonight’s festivities were sort of a dud.”

     “Five minutes after we picked an activity for tomorrow night,” Helen-Alice added, “Kimmie took her laptop and a pizza into her bedroom and closed the door.  She’s probably working on her latest Pretty Little Liars fan fiction.”

     Kendall stared at them.  “Five minutes after – wait, _Pretty Little Liars fan fiction?_ ”

     Marika glared at Helen-Alice, who looked abashed.  “You know she doesn’t like us volunteering that information.”

     “Please don’t tell Kimmie you know,” Helen-Alice said apologetically.  “She doesn’t like people knowing, she thinks everyone believes that only teenage girls, perverts, and sad, lonely, menopausal women write fan fiction.”

     “I won’t,” Kendall promised.  Nor would she tell Kimmie that these were exactly the sort of people SHE thought wrote fan fiction.  “But why would she just – you don’t think it was because _I_ wasn’t here?  It was one time, I’ve been here every Thursday night for months.”

     “It probably had more to do with what Richard told her,” Marika said. 

     “I think perhaps she thought this was how it would start,” Helen-Alice suggested.  “First you make excuses not to be here, and next thing she knows, a month later you’re ignoring her in the hallways at your firm.”

     “Look, whatever you may think, I’m not the Vivian Kensington in her life story,” Kendall said.

     “Aw, jeez, Helen-Alice, now Kendall knows about the Legally Blonde Fan Manifesto?” Marika complained.

     “It’s just a theory!” Helen-Alice snapped.

     “You posted it on that Elle Woods fansite message board!”

     “Getting away from what’s important here!” Kendall interjected.  “Yes, okay, Kimmie and I are friends now, but she still has YOU, and I’m nowhere near as much a part of her life as you two are.  Why would she lock herself in her room just because I’m not here?”

     Marika sighed.  “We’re . . . not really sure, Kendall.  She thinks you lied to her because you didn’t want to spend time with her.  Helen-Alice and I, we’ve never done that to her.  Maybe Kimmie thinks she was wrong about you.”

     “You should probably just ask her yourself,” Helen-Alice said.  “Can I take that?”  She offered to take Kendall’s briefcase.

     “Thanks, but I need it,” Kendall said.

     Helen-Alice nodded and gestured for Kendall to make her way to Kimmie’s room.

     Kendall knocked on Kimmie’s door a few moments later.

     “Not right now, guys, thanks,” Kimmie said from behind the door.

     Rather than announce herself, Kendall tested the door to see if it was locked, and then let herself in.

     “Marika, I said – “

     Kimmie looked up from the computer screen, lying on her stomach on her bed, an unsurprisingly empty pizza box nearby on the floor, and her eyes went round.  “ _Kendall?_ ”

     “Hey, Kimmie,” Kendall said wearily.  “Why’d you think it was Marika?”

     “Helen-Alice isn’t the barging-in type,” Kimmie said, still in disbelief.  “Kendall, what are you doing here?”

     “It’s Thursday night, isn’t it?”

     “Well yeah, but you said . . . “  Kimmie suddenly looked pained.  “You said you had to work tonight.  Some _new client_.”

     Kendall nodded.  “Yep.  Came straight from the office.”

     Kimmie took in her wrinkled skirt and blouse.  “Wow,” she muttered.  “You kept your work clothes on.  Way to maintain the illusion.”

     “Excuse me?”

     “Oh, I know,” Kimmie said bitterly.  “I know all about this _big new client_ that you’re supposedly working on now.  I know that – “

     Instead of replying, Kendall opened the clasps on her bag, turned it upside down, and opened it.  An avalanche of papers came cascading out of it and onto Kimmie’s floor.

     Kimmie gaped at her.  “Is that your way of saying I should be a janitor, not a lawyer?”

     Kendall bent over, grabbed a handful of pages, and held it out to her.  “No, I thought you just might like to see who this _big new client_ is.”

     Reaching out slowly, Kimmie took the pages from her hand and began skimming through them quickly.  “Whoa,” she said after the third page.  “The firm is going to make a boatload of cash from these guys.”  She looked back up at Kendall, mystified.  “And these are your handwritten notes in the margins.  This is who you were talking about in the elevator?”

     Stepping carefully over the papers on the floor, Kendall sat near Kimmie on the bed.  “That’s them.”

     “You were telling the truth?”

     “Why?  Did Richard tell you I was lying?”

     Kimmie looked down.  “No, of course not, he just . . . sorta said a couple things which suggested you hadn’t been entirely truthful when we spoke earlier.”

     “Wow, you definitely sound like a janitor, not a lawyer,” Kendall said, smiling slightly.

     Turning bright red, Kimmie looked down.  “I’m sorry, Kendall,” she said softly.  “I thought you were just making up some kind of excuse not to be here.”

     “Believe me, Kimmie,” Kendall said, looking her in the eyes as best she could.  “A work assignment like this is just about the only thing in my current life that could keep me away from your apartment on a Thursday night.”

     For the first time since Kendall walked in, Kimmie’s mood brightened.  “Really?”

     “Really,” Kendall confirmed.

     “Wow,” Kimmie whispered.  “Wait, then why did Richard tell me . . . crap, he still hates you?”

     “I think that may only be part of it,” Kendall said.  “I hear he and Bethany broke up?”

     “That’s what he told me earlier, yeah,” Kimmie replied.

     “Sounds like his Friday nights are open now.  Maybe he didn’t want to share them with me.”

     Kimmie scowled as she closed her laptop.  “That’s not up to him,” she said angrily.

     “I wouldn’t want to share them with him either,” Kendall said.  “But I wouldn’t try to manipulate you into making that happen.”

     The look Kimmie gave her wasn’t entirely believing.

     “Maybe a few months ago, I would have,” Kendall admitted.  “Now I’d just say, _Look, Kimmie, I don’t like him, he doesn’t like me, and I don’t particularly enjoy the thought of spending time with him tomorrow night._ ”

     Kimmie nodded.  “That I believe.  And then I’d say, _Well, I just won’t invite him then.  You’re my friend and I don’t want to make you uncomfortable_.”

     For a quiet moment they just sat there, smiling at each other.

     “I know you guys already picked an activity out for tomorrow,” Kendall said, “but is there any chance we could have a new vote?  I’ve got a couple ideas of my own.”

     “Well, Marika was pretty stoked about me picking the curling match – “

     “Please, God, no, not that.”

     Kimmie laughed.  “But I think I could talk her into holding new elections.”

     “Great,” Kendall said.  “Also, I’ve got kind of a strange request, considering we’re not exactly the same size, but do you have something I could change into?  This skirt was designed to be stylish, not comfortable, and right now it’s not looking too stylish either.”

     “Oh, sure,” Kimmie said, sliding off the bed awkwardly and standing up.  “I could get you a sweatshirt.  It’ll be so big on you, you probably won’t even need pants with it.”

     Kendall chuckled as she unzipped the skirt, slipped out of it, and then made short work of the buttons on her blouse.  “Will I still be able to use my hands?”

     Taking her blouse off, Kendall looked up and was startled by the look of utter shock on Kimmie’s face.  “S-sorry,” Kimmie said, her cheeks a flaming red now.  “I-I would have let you change in private.”

     Looking at herself, Kendall realized that, clad only in her undergarments, this was the least-dressed Kimmie had ever seen her.  “We’re both women, Kimmie.  It’s not like I have to worry about you _ogling_ me.”

     Kimmie laughed weakly as she thrust some sweats at her.  “Yeah, that’s true,” she said.

     Kendall turned away from Kimmie, since she still seemed uncomfortable, and bent over to pull the sweatpants on.  They were going to completely swallow her legs, and she’d probably need to tie a sailor’s knot at the waistband so they wouldn’t drop back down in three seconds flat, but –

     Glancing up for a moment to look at herself in the mirror, Kendall saw that the angle was such that she couldn’t see her reflection in it.

     But she could see Kimmie’s.

     Kendall looked down dumbly.  She must have been mistaken.  Kimmie couldn’t possibly have been –

     Almost furtively, she looked up at the mirror a second time.

     Yes, Kimmie _absolutely_ looked like she was ogling her.

     Mechanically Kendall pulled up her pants, tied them so tightly that they practically had a death grip on her waist, and then began pulling the sweatshirt over her head.  Before she pushed her head through the collar though, a sudden impulse made her say, “Hey, Kimmie, unhook my bra for me?  I don’t think I’m going to need it any more tonight.”

     Kimmie made a queer – THERE was a funny choice of words – choking sound, and then Kendall felt a woman’s hands against her back, gingerly unhooking her bra.

     “Thanks,” Kendall said, pulling the sweatshirt all the way down, and then reaching under to finish taking her bra off.  Kimmie had only been half-kidding, the bottom of the sweatshirt fell to her thighs and the sleeves were an inch too long for her arms.  She felt like a little girl dressing in her mother’s casual wear, if her mother had ever been the kind of person who wouldn’t punish her children for going near her wardrobe.  The clothes we buy you are more than good enough for you, Kendall, now show your gratitude. 

     Rolling her sleeves up, something she’d probably do another forty times that night, Kendall turned to face Kimmie again. 

     Kimmie was doing her best to hide it, but Kendall could see remnants of the face Kimmie had worn in the mirror’s reflection, and suddenly she knew the real reason Kimmie had been so upset by Kendall’s alleged lies.

     And unless Elle and Vivian hooked up in the director’s cut Kendall had never seen, Helen-Alice was going to have to rework her “theory”.  

     “Let me just use the bathroom for a minute, and then I’ll join you,” Kendall said overly brightly.

     Kimmie just nodded, looking all too ready to have a minute to herself as Kendall left her room.  “I’ll, um, I’ll clean these up for you.”

     Shit, the legal documents.  “I’m sorry, it’s my mess, I’ll – “

     “No, it’s MY mess,” Kimmie said.  “I’m the one who didn’t believe you.  I’m the one to clean it up.”  Even before Kendall could respond, Kimmie put a hand on her back and gently shoved her out through her bedroom door. 

     Marika and Helen-Alice pounced on her before she took two steps away from the door.  “What did she say?” Helen-Alice said.

     “What are you WEARING?” Marika added.

     “Guys, I just need a minute.  I’m sure Kimmie will tell you,” Kendall said quickly, flanking the duo and heading for one of the bathrooms.  She couldn’t handle their gentle but persistent questions right now.  She had to –

     She had to –

     Kendall couldn’t even internally verbalize the thought until she was alone in the bathroom with the door closed and locked.

     She had to process the thought that Kimmie was clearly _sexually attracted to her_.

     She had to push past the near-hysterical thought that she never would have bothered going to that karaoke competition if she’d known sooner, because Richard certainly wouldn’t be getting in Kimmie’s pants any time soon, or ever.  And the thought that if she’d never bothered going to that karaoke competition, her life would be just as sterile and empty as it had been when she’d first joined the firm.

     The thought that of course Kimmie was attracted to her, why wouldn’t she be attracted to her, Kimmie was so far out of Kendall’s league that she’d even be attracted to her if she was STRAIGHT. . .

     Thoughts like those were inconsequential and Kendall dismissed them.  All that mattered was how she felt about this discovery.  Not that Kimmie was gay, or at least bisexual; frankly she’d assumed that Marika was gay almost from the day they’d met.  But that Kimmie was gay for _her_. 

     And she realized that once she got past the initial shock, Kendall didn’t mind at all.  It wouldn’t be a big deal if Kimmie was a man, so why would it be a big deal if Kimmie was a woman?  It only mattered if Kendall had a problem with gay people, and she didn’t. 

     She definitely felt like it was a topic that they needed to broach at some point.  Kendall wasn’t sure if she would have felt comfortable sharing a bed with Kimmie if she’d known the other woman was attracted to her, and it wasn’t in Kimmie’s best interests to go on indulging this crush of hers.  Nothing would ever come of it, after all.

     _You did seem awfully jealous when Richard started sniffing around your private little Friday nights together . . ._

     Kendall ignored that sly little thought poking its head out.  Richard was obviously no friend of hers, and she didn’t want to put up with his hostility for an entire night.  Besides, it was just that ultra-competitive streak of hers coming into play.  Kimmie was HERS, not HIS.

     _Sounds awfully possessive . . ._

_Shut up!_

     Now that she was sufficiently calmed down, Kendall reached out to open the door.

     Which would be rather difficult with her hand once again swallowed up by a sleeve.

     Maybe she should just get scissors.

* * *

     _. . . felt like it was a topic that they needed to broach at some point.  Kendall wasn’t sure if she would have felt comfortable sharing a bed with Kimmie if she’d known the other woman was attracted to her . . ._

     _You going to broach that any second now, Kendall?_

     It was easy to think that in theory.  But it was a lot harder to put into practice.

     By the time they’d redrawn slips for tomorrow night – and much to Marika’s delight, “curling” just would not be denied – Kendall had felt utterly drained from that night’s tension and release.  “Is it okay if I crash here tonight?” she had asked.

     Obviously it was okay, it was probably yet another sign to Kimmie of how comfortable Kendall now felt around the girls.  Expecting to take the couch, however, Kendall found herself being led back into Kimmie’s bedroom, where all her paperwork had evidently disappeared back into her briefcase. 

     “I can just take the couch,” Kendall had said.  “I’ve got to get up early tomorrow so I can go home and change for work, and I don’t want to wake anyone.”

     “Don’t worry about it,” Kimmie had replied.  “We’re three women sharing two bathrooms.  So it’s first-come, first-served.  One time Marika got up at four in the morning in order to be first one in, we found her asleep in an empty bathtub.  Anyway, I’ve got a king-sized bed all to myself.  I’ve got room, and I don’t mind sharing.”

     _Of course she doesn’t mind, Kendall, she knows that this is as close as she’s ever going to get to sleeping with you in the figurative sense.  Speak up, speak up!_

     The problem was that Kimmie was bound to be utterly mortified when Kendall said something along the lines of “I saw you checking out my ass in the mirror earlier”.  Kendall wasn’t sure what impact that would have on the relationship, especially so soon after Kimmie thinking that Kendall had been distancing herself from the three women. 

     And yeah, it did look a lot comfier than the couch.

     Still, the last time they’d shared a bed, Kendall had woken up with an arm on top of her.  Then again, Helen-Alice had said that Kimmie practically rolled over her in bed when they were younger, so it probably wasn’t specific to one person . . .

     Before Kendall knew it, she was under the covers and the light was out.  She didn’t even remember getting in bed.  How did Kimmie always seem to do this to her?  How did she always get Kendall to say “yes” to something instead of “no”?  If Kimmie ever said, “say, how about we make out for a while”, would Kendall find herself saying “yes” to that too?

  _It probably wouldn’t be the worst thing ever._

_Inner lesbian or whoever the hell you are, would you please shut the fuck up?!_

_You’re saying it would?_

_Yes, fine, it wouldn’t be the worst thing ever, but neither would tripping on the pavement and skinning my knee.  “Not the worst thing ever” is not a good enough reason to kiss someone!_

_Richard would freak if he knew._

_ALSO not a good enough reason!_

_You’d freak if you found out HE kissed her._

_Yes, but that didn’t mean anything, it’d be just a little bit of jealousy, that’s not a big deal._

_You’re allegedly a heterosexual woman who’s “just a little bit jealous” of a man kissing your female friend, and that’s not a big deal?_

_. . ._

     “Well, good night,” Kimmie said cheerfully.

     “I saw you checking my ass out in the mirror earlier.”

     Kendall swore it had just slipped right out.

     There was a minute of something akin to shocked silence in the dark before Kimmie scoffed.  “Yeah, right Kendall, I see you’re still a little full of yourself – “

     “Twice.  I saw it twice.”  Motherfucker, where were these words coming from?  “And I could see it in your eyes after I finished getting dressed.”

     “Kendall – “

     “I’m not upset, okay?” Kendall said.  No point in holding back now.  “I’m not a bigot, I don’t care if you’re gay or bi or whatever, and I’m not going to turn into a raging homophobe because you’re attracted to me.  But I thought we should talk about it.  Better here than at work or in front of Marika and Helen-Alice, right?”

     Kimmie again took a minute to respond.  “I guess?” she said quietly.

     Kendall sighed.  “Don’t tell me I was seeing things.  I wasn’t, was I?”

     “ . . . no.”

     She turned to reach over and turn the lamp back on.

     “Kendall, if we’re going to have this conversation, I’d really prefer we had it in the dark,” Kimmie said quickly.

     Now that Kendall thought of it, she preferred it that way too.  “Okay.  So . . . how long have you felt this way?”

     “A while ago, I guess.  After that night at your apartment, so you know.”  Kimmie paused.  “I was thinking about how unbelievable it was that someone as beautiful as you was willing to be friends with someone who looked like me, and then I started thinking about just how beautiful you were, and then . . . “

     “And then?” Kendall eventually prompted her.

     “ . . . and then about how much I’d like to kiss someone who looked like you.”

     Kendall nodded, even though Kimmie couldn’t see it.  “Well, I do try to look my best at the office.”

     “It wasn’t at the office though,” Kimmie said.  “It was here, on a Thursday.  You just had on yoga pants and a T-shirt, you’d even scrubbed your makeup off, and I was just like, wow, even like that she’s beautiful.”

     That – that was nicer than anything her past boyfriends had told her.

     “I know you’re straight,” Kimmie went on.  “I thought I was too, but those feelings kept coming back.  That little voice in the back of my head kept reminding me of how easy it was for you to look so good.”

     _Sound like any other little voices you know?_

_Not listening, lalalalala._

     “Honestly, Kimmie,” Kendall said, impressed with how calm she sounded, “I’m very flattered by it.  But like you said, I’m not into girls – “

     “Like me?”

     “What, no!  Girls in general, Kimmie.  You’re smart, you’re a good attorney, you’re a hard worker, you’re funny, you’re sweet, obviously you’re great to spend time with.” 

     “Am I pretty?”

     Of course Kimmie, insecure about her looks as she was, would ask that question.

     “Truthfully,” Kimmie added.  “Don’t just say yes to save my feelings.”

     Kendall sighed and really thought about it for a few moments.  “Yes,” she finally said.  “You are.  You’re not exactly what I’d call a ‘classic beauty’, and your taste in fashion can be a bit, well, conservative.”

     “It’s not like I can really pull off a pencil skirt.”

     “I’m just saying I think you sometimes dress like you’re ashamed of your body,” Kendall said gingerly.

     Kimmie didn’t respond at first, but then she sighed.  “Yeah, okay, I guess that’s fair.  But you’re not the one getting stuck in office chairs.”

     Kendall winced.  “I see your point.  I’m just saying that if you wanted to dress a little less modestly, I think you could pull it off.  Besides, a lot of people out there would probably that someone like me could stand to gain a few pounds, or else I’d blow away.”

     “Sometimes Marika can be a little – tactless.”

     She was impressed by how well Kimmie knew her friends.  “It doesn’t change the fact that if you and I stood side-by-side, a lot of people would say you were the more attractive one.”  Not as many as HER, of course, but still.

     “So,” Kimmie said slowly, “if you WERE into girls . . . “

     “Yes, Kimmie.  If I was into girls, I would date you.”

     Kimmie didn’t say anything for a moment.  “Are you sure you’re not into girls?” she asked plaintively.  “Seriously, that’s the nicest thing anyone I’ve ever wanted to go out with has ever said to me.”

     “Pretty sure.”

     “Have you ever tried it?”

     “No, but – “

     “Then how can you be sure?”

     “Are you going somewhere with this line of questioning, Counselor?” Kendall asked dryly.

     “If the Court will allow me to ask one more question, your Honor?” Kimmie replied.

     “Very well.”

     After a moment, Kendall felt the mattress move in such a way that she knew Kimmie had rolled onto her side and was probably looking right at her.

     “Would you be willing to kiss the plaintiff one time, just to be sure?” Kimmie asked softly.

     Oh fuck, how the hell could you object to that?  Or in this case, how could you say “Objection!” to that?  It’d be like punching a kitten.  For fun!

     Besides, Kendall _was_ sure, so it wasn’t like she was going to erupt into a gay panic a minute from now.  “No tongue.”

     “Oh, oh sure, I mean, of course not.  But not a chaste little kiss either.  You’ve got to put a little effort into it, Kendall, or it won’t mean anything.”

     Rolling onto her left side, Kendall found that her eyes had adjusted enough to the dark that she could see Kimmie’s face a few inches from hers.  She almost thought she could see the look of naked appeal too. 

     “Of course, Kimmie,” she murmured.  “I always come to play.”

     And just because of that, Kendall made damn sure that she kissed Kimmie before she kissed her.

     It wasn’t world-shattering.  It wasn’t mind-blowing.  It didn’t completely turn the earth on its axis.  She didn’t “see the leaves”.  It didn’t have Kendall questioning every time she’d gone out with a man.  And like they agreed, no tongue.

     All of these thoughts ran through Kendall’s mind when they eventually pulled away from the kiss, and when they were gone, only one thought remained.

     _You liked it._

_. . . yeah.  Yeah, I did._

     She opened her eyes and looked at Kimmie.  Her eyes shined back at her.

     At that point her competitive side SHOULD have kicked in, just like always, and the next words out of her mouth would’ve been, “Best two out of three?”

     But for once, Kendall’s rational side took over.  “I’m sorry,” she whispered, looking down.  “I’m so sorry.”

     Then she turned over, so she wouldn’t have to look at Kimmie’s face.

     She’d always believed in “win by any means necessary”, but it didn’t feel like winning when the means involved lying.

     To be concluded . . .

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, the show was canceled, so this will probably continue to be the only SFN story on AO3. Which I suppose it deserves, the show had some terrible flaws that grew larger with time, not the least of which was the completely schizophrenic way in which Kendall was written. It's as if the writers never quite decided if Kendall had a heart buried inside, or if she was just a vengeful sociopath. I thought Episode 05 handled their relationship best, and I'm sorry that it only seemed to grow more antagonistic over time. 
> 
> But I wanted to finish this story. I know it's not my best work, I think I may have made Kendall a little TOO human. And I'd hoped to wrap everything up here, but I've decided there still needs to be one more chapter.


	6. Chapter 6

     Kendall had never had any personal experience with the so-called “walk of shame”. Oh sure, there had been one or two ill-advised nights in college and law school, but it had always been the guy slinking out afterwards, not her. So she only knew what she’d been told, and what she’d been told was that it involved a lot of drinking, sex with a stranger, and going home at an unspeakably early hour in the clothes you had worn the night before.

     By that definition, what Kendall was doing now could not be considered a “walk of shame”. She’d been sober all night, and one kiss and a shared bed did NOT qualify as “sex” in her book. The only similarity lay in the fact that she’d slipped out of Kimmie’s apartment at 4:30 A.M., and she was now sitting in the back of a taxi in her work clothes from yesterday. Not that anyone could have known that, since she was still wearing Kimmie’s borrowed sweatshirt over it.

     She couldn’t explain why she’d taken it with her.

     Nor could she explain why, if this clearly was not a “walk of shame”, a heavy lump of shame and guilt sat in her stomach like a big block of ice.

     Kendall hugged herself, seeking comfort from the soft, oversized sleeves from Kimmie’s . . .

     Okay, yeah, she could totally explain it. She just wasn’t ready to. 

* * *

 

     Kimmie caught her as she was walking back to her office from her first meeting with the partner – not Richard, thankfully - who’d been assigned to supervise her work on the _big new client_. Kendall had been feeling pretty good at that moment. The partner thought she had already gotten a good handle on things in just her first twenty-four hours, and if she could just keep this up long enough, Kendall thought she was guaranteed to make partner herself one day.

     Then she realized Kimmie was walking beside her, and the good feelings were washed away by a sea of discomfort.

     But Kimmie wasn’t babbling for once, she was unusually silent, and finally Kendall broke through the awkwardness. “I took your sweatshirt,” she said. “I’ll give it back to you tonight.”

     “Oh. Yes. Right. You don’t need to,” Kimmie replied haltingly. “I have plenty more.”

     “Kimmie, it’s also a bit large on my frame.”

     “It IS for sleeping in, you know.”

     “Right,” Kendall eventually said, unable to form a better response.

     Just as they were at Kendall’s door, Kimmie spoke up. “Richard will be joining us tonight. He asked what our plans were, and without thinking about it I told him, and apparently he _loves_ curling – “

     _Sure he does._

     “And I figured he’d just go anyway, so I said he could sit with us,” Kimmie finished. She waved at someone down the hall.

     Kendall looked up and saw Richard’s jovial, smug face as he waved back. Even from where he was he could probably sense the distance she was feeling between herself and Kimmie. He probably thought his brilliant scheme was working perfectly. His brilliant scheme to ease Kendall out of their little group and himself in.

     She was unexpectedly beset by waves of jealousy and loathing, all for that arrogant, trumped-up little shit, and Kendall was just barely able to keep from snarling at him. She would have been proud of her ability to just look back impassively, if she wasn’t so upset right then.

     “Fine, whatever, I’ll see you tonight then,” Kendall said as she went into her office.

     “Kendall,” Kimmie said urgently, taking a step over her threshold and touching Kendall on the arm. “About last night, I’m really sorry, I shouldn’t have – “

     “You have nothing to apologize for, Kimmie,” Kendall replied. “I guess it just . . . wasn’t meant to be.”

     Kimmie flinched. Kendall should have cared, but the hatred for Richard had vanished, leaving only a deep depression. She was right, it wasn’t meant to be, because she was a fool who hadn’t wanted to understand the meaning of her feelings for Kimmie until her body betrayed her, and a coward who’d been too afraid to act on them. Too afraid of her parents and her bosses and the high school friends she hadn’t spoken to in years. They hadn’t been there in the flesh, but they were present in Kendall’s head last night. And they’d laughed with scorn and disbelief at the idea that Kendall Quinn – perfect daughter, queen bee, shark in the courtroom – could be strongly attracted to the _fat, nerdy loser dyke_ who was completely out of Kendall’s league _._

     None of that changed the fact that she WAS strongly attracted to Kimmie.

     Or that Kimmie, who had silently retreated from her office doorway, thought she wasn’t.

     Maybe Kimmie wasn’t the one who was attracted to someone out of her league.

* * *

 

   “See, maybe if you guys were _paying attention_ to the game like Kendall is, you’d actually be enjoying it,” Marika said, irritated.

     Kendall was giving all her attention to the curling match unfolding on the ice below her all right, because she didn’t want to know what Kimmie and Richard were talking about. The five of them had met at the skating rink where the national team tryouts were taking place, and Kendall had quite intentionally allowed Kimmie and Richard to take the two seats furthest from her own, letting Helen-Alice and Marika serve as a buffer between them.

     To be fair, once Marika had explained the rules of the game to her, as if she’d been watching curling matches all her life – which was completely preposterous since the whole _point_ of these Friday night outings was to try new things – Kendall had discovered that she actually liked curling. It was basically a glorified board game played on an icy surface, and she couldn’t see why curling was an Olympic sport but Monopoly wasn’t. But it demanded precision, strategy, and leadership from the team captain, three qualities Kendall could absolutely appreciate.

     Still, Kendall felt slightly hypocritical in allowing Marika to think that she’d converted at least one of the four others into a passionate curling fan.

     “What else is Kendall going to pay attention to?” she vaguely heard Richard say. “She’s all alone over there.”

     “What am I, a seat cushion?” Marika retorted.

     “Curling has its charms, Marika,” Helen-Alice interjected, always the peacemaker. “But it’s not so complicated that I’ll lose total track of the game if I turn and talk to Kimmie for two minutes.”

     “Speaking of which,” Marika said, lowering her voice to a murmur as she turned back to Kendall, “why _are_ you at this end? I know Richard is a tool, but you and Kimmie are never this far apart.”

     Kendall shrugged. “It just worked out that way.”

     “Uh-huh. Like when you handed out the tickets one at a time while I was in the ladies’ room, so that you’d end up here and Kimmie would be in seat 4?” Marika asked.

     “How did – “

     “Helen-Alice told me.”

     She sighed. “Naturally.” Kendall looked away.

     Marika poked her. “I know you two had a disagreement last night, and I’m also pretty damn sure it was _his_ doing,” she muttered, sticking her thumb in Richard’s direction. “But I thought you two settled it. So why is Kimmie over _there_?”

     Kendall didn’t have an answer for that, not one she cared to give.

     “Fine,” Marika growled. “I’ll just ask Kimmie about it.”

     “ _No_ ,” Kendall hissed desperately.

     Marika glared at her, and then looked at Helen-Alice. “Kendall and me, we’re going to check out the hockey memorabilia. She’s never seen it before, can you believe that?”

     “No!” Helen-Alice gasped in mock disbelief.

     “Anyway, we’ll be right back,” Marika grumbled.

     Then she grabbed Kendall and practically hauled her to her feet, but not before Kendall caught Helen-Alice mouth the words _Fix this_ to Marika.

     Kendall thought the memorabilia had just been an excuse, but as it turned out, the rink DID have such a thing. They were also the only two “hockey fans” there, which may have been the real reason Marika suggested it. “Okay, Kendall, spill,” she warned her. “I swear to fuck, you two are giving me whiplash lately. At least it was easier when you hated each other. Now, Kimmie hears you won’t be coming over on a Thursday night, and she acts like they killed off Spencer _and_ Emily.”

     “Who?” Kendall asked blankly.

     “You’re better off not knowing,” Marika said, her expression growing darker. “And you’re avoiding the question again! You came by last night, and today Kimmie’s gone from ‘upset’ to ‘depressed’. If you don’t fill me in, I’ll sic Helen-Alice on you, and that girl is goddamn _relentless_.”

     Kendall glanced around to make sure no one else had wandered in while Marika was talking. “I probably shouldn’t be saying this, it’s something private.”

     “Kimmie doesn’t keep secrets from us.”

     “She kissed me.”

     Marika blinked. “And?”

     Kendall gaped at her for a few seconds. “ _And?!_ ”

     “Kendall, she’s been making puppy-dog eyes at you for at least a couple weeks now. I realize that you’re clueless and you have a big ego, so either you never noticed, or you just assumed that everybody looks at you that way,” Marika said. “But don’t be surprised when the observant people in her life pick up on these things.”

     She was still incapable of much more than spluttering in outrage. “But – but – “

     Marika sighed. “This isn’t about you being homophobic, is it?”

     “ _I am not a homophobe!”_

     “I didn’t say you were,” Marika replied coolly, “I just asked if that’s what this is about. And okay, I believe you. Still, you obviously turned her down. So either you’re not into girls, or you’ve got some internalized homophobia to deal – “

     “I just SAID – “

     “Internalized homophobia, Kendall. It’s like, people have been telling you there’s something wrong with being gay for so long that you lash out at the merest suggestion that you might be gay yourself.”

     Kendall and Marika both started at the sound of Helen-Alice’s voice. “I was going to say that, Helen-Alice,” Marika complained.

     “Yes, well, it seemed like a good moment to join the conversation,” she said calmly. Helen-Alice then turned her attention to Kendall. “So which is it? Are you distancing yourself from Kimmie because she likes you? Or because you like her back?”

     She felt nauseous at being confronted so openly over questions about her sexuality. It would be so easy for Kendall to just lie and say that she was just a straight girl panicking over another girl crushing on her. But she’d already lied to Kimmie and felt horrible about it. These two had become her best friends in the world besides Kimmie, and Kendall couldn’t stomach doing it to them too. “Mostly . . . because I like her back,” she admitted softly.

     Marika and Helen-Alice looked almost – _gratified_ as they looked at each other. “We’ve so got to get these crazy kids together now,” Marika said.

     “Then we can finally come clean to Kimmie,” Helen-Alice added.

     They were behaving so strangely now that Kendall’s self-preservation instinct kicked in. _Don’t ask, Kendall. Your mind is so thoroughly blown right now, you can’t handle whatever the answer is._

     It didn’t kick in strongly enough to stop her from speaking, though. “Come clean about WHAT?”

     “Oh, Helen-Alice and I have been doing it for the past couple years,” Marika said, like it was the simplest thing in the world.

     Kendall had to sit down, but there was nowhere to sit. So she sat on the floor.

     Helen-Alice sighed. “Marika, you broke her.”

   “I did not!”

     “Kendall,” Helen-Alice said, crouching down next to her. “Marika and I have been involved for some time now, but we didn’t want Kimmie to know because she would insist on doing the ‘noble’ thing and moving out to ‘give us our privacy’. Then she would be all alone, and Marika and I could not bear that.”

     “Now we can just have you move in,” Marika added, “and be one big happy family. Well, two big happy families, I’m not saying we should all be in some kind of weird four-way relationship. Maybe I have the stamina for two of you, but not all three.”

     “Marika!” Helen-Alice hissed as Kendall felt her migraine develop a second later. “You broke her again!”

     “So,” Kendall started, but she actually CROAKED and had to start over. “So what you’re saying is that . . . I’m sorry, I don’t think I know what you’re saying.”

     “What we’re saying,” Helen-Alice said patiently, “is that if you want to date Kimmie, we approve. You deserve her so much more than Richard, and this is saying a lot because we think there are very, very few people out there who deserve someone as special as her. All you need to do is – “

     “Pull your head out of your ass,” Marika suggested.

     Helen-Alice closed her eyes and shook her head. “No – “

    “No, she’s right,” Kendall stopped her. “This all happened because I got my head stuck up my own ass, and now I have to do something about it.”

     “Damn straight,” Marika muttered.

     “Yes, but if you have another opportunity, how do you know you won’t squander it like the first time?” Helen-Alice asked seriously.

     Kendall didn’t answer her right away. “Do you really think I’d be good for her?” she asked instead.

     Helen-Alice smiled. “No, Kendall. I think you’d be good for each other.”

    “Yeah,” Marika said. “You blow this again, you’ll be letting down all four of us.”

     “Point taken,” Kendall said. “Help me up?”

     Marika easily pulled her back into a standing upright position as Helen-Alice stood. “So what are you going to do about it?”

     Kendall looked at them. “First, I’m going to get her away from that slimy prick we’ve left her alone with, because I’m her friend. And then, no offense, I’m going to get her away from you two, because I want to be more than her friend, and that calls for some privacy.”

     Helen-Alice and Marika looked equally triumphant, and . . . huh, look at that, they were holding hands. How had Kendall missed that?

* * *

 

     Despite her display of self-confidence, Kendall returned to their seats knowing that what she was about to do would be dependent on how Kimmie looked. Kimmie had been friends with Richard back when Kendall still saw her as both her rival and her inferior. And Richard was obviously going with the charm offensive, now that Bethany was out of the picture. If Kimmie was busy reconnecting with Richard while Kendall and the others were away, if she thought Kendall was just a hopeless fantasy now – then Kendall felt like she had no choice but to retake her seat and say nothing.

     On the other hand, if Kimmie was only talking to him because she was being her way-too-nice self where she simply didn’t know how to say “no”? Well, Kendall had some pent-up anger to liberate in Richard’s direction.

     Until she could see Kimmie’s face, though, all Kendall could feel was an ocean of pent-up anxiety instead.

     The first thing she saw, though, was Richard talking animatedly about something that frankly, Kendall didn’t care to hear about. All she care about was Kimmie, and she was facing away from her. Probably listening in rapt attention, with Kendall’s rotten luck.

     “Kimmie,” she said quietly as she inched closer, while Richard didn’t even deign to notice her arrival. Prick.

     Kimmie turned and looked up at her, and relief blossomed in Kendall’s chest. “Trapped” wasn’t normally a look that she enjoyed seeing on Kimmie’s face, but tonight she’d make an exception. “Yes, Kendall?”

     “We’re leaving.”

     “You’re leaving?” Richard asked with obvious faux dismay. “Got somewhere else to be?”

     She stared at him. “Yeah, you know, things to do. Things that have nothing to do with any kind of BIG NEW CLIENT I might have now.”

     Kimmie swiftly turned back toward him. “Right, that VERY big new client that Kendall didn’t get yesterday. Isn’t that what you told me, Richard?”

     Kendall enjoyed the way he turned pale. “Well, you see, Kimmie, apparently I was misinformed about that. I spoke to my father later in the day, and he told me – “

     “Save it, Richie,” Kendall snapped. “Pretty amateur move, if you ask me. Lying to Kimmie without covering all your bases. You do realize that I talk to her roommates too, right? Marika and Helen-Alice? Do you think you could be bothered to still remember their names tomorrow, Richie?”

     “Kimmie – “

     “And I didn’t say I was leaving,” Kendall interrupted him a second time. “I said WE were leaving. Kimmie and I.”

     Kimmie was going to hurt her neck, the way she kept spinning back and forth between them. “We are? Where are we going?”

     Kendall took her hand and gently tugged on it, inviting Kimmie to stand up. Surrounded by Richard and a bunch of strangers, she wasn’t sure she could openly express her feelings, but she didn’t exactly need to. “Remember what we were talking about last night, before we went to sleep?”

     Kimmie just nodded.

     Kendall leaned forward. “I liked it,” she confessed quietly. “I really did.”

     “You – you did?” Kimmie asked, her eyes suddenly wet.

     “Yeah,” Kendall said, smiling.

     “But you said – “

     “You know me, Kimmie. I hate to lose.”

     Kimmie squeezed her hand more tightly as she turned and looked down at Richard. “Piece of advice, Richard? Either try to win Bethany back, or don’t whine about her for thirty minutes the next time you meet someone new.”

     Richard’s jaw dropped.

     “What about Marika and Helen-Alice?” Kimmie asked as she allowed Kendall to lead her back to the aisle.

     “Oh, trust me,” Kendall said. “I’m sure they can find ways to occupy themselves.”

     Kimmie’s trust, however, proved to be slightly harder to win, because she stopped Kendall just after they got outside. “I wasn’t interested in continuing this conversation in code because Richard was sitting there, Kendall, but you’ve got to give me something more to go on than ‘I hate to lose’. I get that your competitive instinct is legendary and all, but . . . “

     “But what?” Kendall asked.

     “But,” Kimmie finally said, “I was devastated last night when you turned away from me. And I thought, ‘Okay, well, it’s like she said, she’s not into girls after all’. But now I find out that you maybe kinda are, and you _still_ rejected me, and that hurts me all over again.”

     Kendall looked down at her hands. “I’m sorry about that.”

     Kimmie nodded. “And I believe you. But I have to know that this isn’t some twisted, ultracompetitive ‘get Kimmie before Richard does’ thing. I have to know that you’re not just going to lose your nerve again when we’re alone.”

     “Hey, you’ve been crushing on me for weeks now, Kimmie,” Kendall replied. “You’ve had plenty of time to accept this about yourself. I had a tiny bit of an idea that the way I felt about you had changed, but I wasn’t exactly doing a lot of self-analysis until last night. I didn’t even know that _you_ had feelings for _me_ until I noticed you checking me out in the mirror. I feel like I was slightly allowed to have an attack of gay panic.”

     “And was that the only attack you’re going to have?”

     “I can’t promise anything when my parents find out,” Kendall joked weakly.

     Kimmie just raised an eyebrow.

     “Yes,” Kendall sighed. “That was the only one. Honestly, I already feel like a different person from before I first met you. What’s a change in sexual orientation at this point?”

     “Kendall – “

     Kimmie couldn’t finish because Kendall kissed her. And this time, the only voice Kendall heard in her head was the one that said _Greatest way to shut Kimmie up EVER._

     And it was the greatest way indeed, because Kimmie was still speechless even after Kendall pulled away. Her eyes had a dazed, far-off look, and her lips were moving like her brain hadn’t gotten the message yet that the kiss was over.

     Both women’s cell phones buzzed then, which seemed to jolt Kimmie as Kendall looked at her. It was from Marika. LITTLE RICHIE LEAVING NOW. SLOWED HIM DOWN 4 U. IF U HAVENT PLANTED 1 ON HER YET SAVE IT FOT APARTMENT.

     “Helen-Alice says we should go if we haven’t left yet,” Kimmie said absently.

     “Are you satisfied now?” Kendall asked.

     “No,” Kimmie replied. “Not until we do THAT a lot more."

To (really) be concluded . . .

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I know I said "to be concluded" at the end of Chapter 5, but there will be a short epilogue to come, and then that will be it, I swear.
> 
> I hadn't initially planned for Marika and Helen-Alice to be involved romantically. But then we - and Marika - learned that she was a lesbian near the end of Season One. It felt a little strange to make Kimmie and Kendall gay, while at the same time making Marika straight (or at the very least not bringing up her sexuality at all). And it just didn't seem fair to Helen-Alice to leave her out. This will not be a Kendall/Kimmie/Marika/Helen-Alice story, though, lol


End file.
